In the last six months economic growth pace has come down. In the period of 2004-08 the GDP was at an average growing at the level of 9%, thereafter for next 2 years the average growth fell down to 7% and in the last few years it has lowered further.

One
of the important issues which the lower economic growth brings to the
forefront is of job creation and with no economic growth it will be a
greater challenge. India can achieve GDP growth rate of well over 6%
provided that systemic reforms are carried out quickly by the new
Government, said Ajay S Shriram, the new President of the
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

In
Focus

Unveiling
the CII action theme for the year as ‘Accelerating Growth, Creating
Employment’, Shriram noted, “With slowing growth and high
inflation adversely impacting employment, CII will urge the
nextGovernment to focus on reviving growth and generating new jobs.”

In
his press conference, Shriram added that CII has proposed a strong
100-day action agenda for the new government to boost growth. “A
strong economic revival package and right implementation of policies
by a fresh Government can help create as many as 150 million jobs in
the next ten years,” he stressed.

“Industry
is looking for top policy steps such as introduction of GST, easing
of interest rates by 100 bps, keeping subsidies at 1.7 per cent of
GDP, and restructuring of labour laws to promote mass manufacturing.”

CII
further stated that with continuing robust reforms, GDP growth could
be taken back to the 8 per cent level in the next three years. “A
market-friendly environment is required that would proactively
promote investments, business and entrepreneurship,” said Shriram.
Mass manufacturing sectors and labour-intensive services sectors need
to be encouraged, he continued.

Considering
the situation of economic growth and need of job creation being
crucial we need to focus on economic growth. Looking forward, India
requires to create 12-15 million jobs per year for the next ten years
to address the employability for the youth. Not having jobs with
large population can lead to disturbing of the social fabric of the
country.

Key
priorities for CII in the coming year will be in the following ten
areas: education, skills, economic growth, manufacturing sector
growth, investments, ease of doing business, export competitiveness,
legal and regulatory architecture, labour law reforms and
entrepreneurship.

CII
has strongly called for immediate steps of the following policies,
among others, in the first 100 days by the next Government:

-
Restructuring labour laws including introduction of Fixed Term
Employment for industry to hire manpower on short term assignments

CII
would continue to provide inputs in the areas of direct
and indirect taxes
to help India emerge as an attractive destination for business.

In
agriculture,
CII’s Food and Agricultural Center of Excellence (FACE)is studying
the impact of Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Act (APMC)
which needs to be revamped to delist perishables. CII will also
undertake a study on gas pricing and its impact on end-users,
macro-economic indicators and the investment environment. Supply
chain bottle necks need to be addressed for reducing food losses and
increase farmers income.

In
manufacturing,
it will work with concerned Ministries and State Governments on
delayed projects and also on specific policies, particularly for
labour-intensive sectors. CII has called for quick implementation of
the National Manufacturing Policy and would bring out a report on
Mass Manufacturing policy. For MSMEs, CII plans to launch a Finance
Facilitation Centre and initiatives to link Indian SMEs with global
value chains. MSMEs can play an instrumental role for job creation.

In
services,
CII will constitute National Services Competitiveness Council and
develop a sectoral strategy for doubling of services export by 2025.
It has targeted several sectors such as Tourism and Hospitality,
Financial Services, Telecommunications and Professional Services for
export promotion.

In
skill
development, CII
will help implement the National Skill Qualification Framework (NSQF)
and continue to work on Sector Skills Councils. It will also focus
working on vocational education, Microfinance /credit to vocational
training for the youth. It is important that in the short term the
Apprenticeship Act 1961is amended to take out the compulsion of jobs
to apprentices, this will enable industry to deploy a larger number
of apprentices which will help them gain training for jobs.

For
better quality higher
education,
one of the CII interventions will be to launch the 100-100 program
where 100 CII member companies will create 100 Faculty Sabbaticals
who will spend two/ three months in industry to explore multi-level
partnerships like research, curriculum, and skills development.

In
labour
laws,
CII will create platforms for sharing best practices from industry
which have helped in fostering better industrial relations within the
current framework. Labour laws should be under the state purview and
each state should devise its own labour policy. In addition, it will
work with its membership, Trade Unions, Central and State Governments
for creating consensus on various issues.

To
improve the ease
of doing business
in India, CII will present to the government best practices in the
states which can be emulated in the areas of land acquisition,
contract enforcement and taxation. CII has been strongly underscoring
the need for a reduction in transactions cost of exports
to overcome difficult business conditions abroad. In this context,
CII has constituted a task force on transactions costs which proposes
a framework for building an efficient trade facilitation mechanism in
India.

In
order to support entrepreneurship,
CII will significantly expand its PPP initiative “India Innovation
Initiative” to select the most innovative entrepreneurs through a
pan-India competition.